THE THRESHOLD OF THE GODS. 85 
peculiar tone of a bird’s voice; any, even the 
least noteworthy thing, would hint to him of 
the future. He would find himself trying his 
fortune, so to speak, by little tests put in an 
almost involuntary and wholly whimsical way, 
to accidents and circumstances as they would 
come of things as trivial as the mere breaking 
of a twig or blowing away of a flower petal. 
He related, with minute details, how once an 
emerald-green, peculiarly brilliant scarabzeus 
kept itself by short, sudden flights, just ahead 
of him in a woodland path, and how after he 
had followed it some distance, wondering 
what it was leading him to, he came upon a 
huge rattle-snake, coiled ready for a spring. 
The beetle had saved the life of a great states- 
man and a true man ! 
I could not console myself with the fancy 
that the kingfisher would steer us safely 
through the rapids; for his voice was insincere, 
and his very movements would forcibly suggest 
sinister things. Such is human perversity, 
moreover, that I preferred the evil interpreta- 
tion. I actually found myself gloating. over 
the anticipation of the halcyon’s successful 
stratagem. I even smiled as I saw, in fancy, 
our boat dissolve into fibres and ourselves go 
whirling through awful vortices mangled and 
dead! 
Nevertheless, I noted everything we passed, 
and fixed in my memory with the power of a 
trained concentration the changes in the 
landscape bordering the stream. These 
changes were constant, blending into each 
_ other like colors on the artist’s canvas. I im- 
agined that the trees and shrubs and ferns, 
and the aquatic grasses into which the mar 
